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Strong Quake in Northern Japan Injures 11

Posted on: Thursday, 25 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

A strong quake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8 rocked the northern Japan island of Hokkaido early Friday morning, knocking out power, derailing a train and touching off an industrial fire. At least 12 people were reported injured.

A powerful aftershock of magnitude 6 followed an hour later, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The government warned local residents to avoid coastal areas due to the possibility of tsunami, or ocean waves caused by seismic activity. Japan's Meteorological agency said tsunami as high as 3 feet had hit the city of Kushiro.

The quake, which struck at 4:50 a.m., was focused off Hokkaido's eastern shore.

The quake was strong enough to rock buildings on the island and shake books and other objects off shelves.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported that about 11 people were injured, none seriously, by falling shelves and other toppled objects. One 70-year-old woman suffered a broken leg while trying to leave her house through a window, NHK said.

A fire started at an industrial plant in the city of Tomakomai, but no workers were reported injured, said Hokkaido prefectural police official Kuniyoshi Omori.

NHK showed giant flames and black plumes of smoke pouring from the site, which police said belonged to Idemitsu Co. Streams of water were aimed at the flames.

Omori said one person was injured when a local train carrying about 39 passengers derailed. Kushiro airport was closed temporarily after part of a roof caved in, and several roads were blocked by landslides, NHK said.

Television footage showed an office where books were knocked off shelves, and desks and computers swayed back and forth as the quake hit.

Tsunami were observed in some coastal cities, NHK reported.

"We are now trying to collect information on the extent of the damage," local official Sadayuki Kano said. "There are no reports of other major damage."

The meteorological agency said the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.8 and was focused 36 miles under the seabed.

The U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., said the temblor had a preliminary magnitude of 8. An earthquake of that magnitude is capable of causing tremendous damage.

In September 1923, a magnitude 8.3 quake hit Tokyo and Yokohama, killing at least 140,000 people.

In January 1995, a magnitude 7.2 temblor in Kobe killed more than 6,000 people.

Thursday's quake struck in the Pacific Ocean, about 65 miles south-southwest of Kushiro and 495 miles north-northeast of Tokyo, said John Minsch, a USGS geophysicist. The quake was shallow.

"That makes it more likely to be a tsunami, and there's most likely to be a great amount of damage," Minsch said.

Hokkaido is the northernmost and most sparsely populated of Japan's major islands. Sapporo is the prefecture's capital.

Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. It sits atop four tectonic plates, slabs that move across the earth's surface.

Geophysicist Doug Given in Pasadena, Calif., said the region is "part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the zone of very large earthquakes and volcanoes that rings the Pacific Rim."

Tsunami warnings and watches were issued throughout the Pacific but they later were canceled.

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